In 2012, mining data about voters, and then 'nanotargeting' message, is the new way to campaign

Winning an election isn't just about kissing babies anymore -- it's about knowing which babies to kiss, and how and when to kiss them.

Like never before, campaigns are making sure those kisses count by using the latest high-tech marketing tools to deliver just the right message to just the right audience.

While Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are on the campaign trail, their staffers are writing algorithms to influence voters, knowing precisely whether they drive pickups or Priuses, go to church on Sundays, get their news from Drudge or the Huffington Post, and even whether their baby wears Pampers. With all they know about you, that banner ad from Obama on your computer screen may have been targeted just to you.

"If the tech story of the 2008 election was social media, the tech story of 2012 is Big Data," said Andrew Rasiej, the founder of Personal Democracy Media, which tracks the intersection of technology and politics.

Some privacy advocates say it's now too easy -- and maybe even creepy -- for campaigns to stalk us, thanks to all the information about us that campaigns can buy and all we give them for free, thanks to the social media explosion. But experts say this is how 21st-century election battles will be waged.

The Obama and Romney campaigns both use the same strategies as Fortune 500 companies to mine commercial databases, social media and any other information they can find to build "highly sophisticated profiles on every single potential voter," Rasiej said.

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"So if you're a mother of two kids in public school, and you've signed up for the Obama campaign ... and you tweet about organic food and 7th Generation cleaning products, they kind of know that you're an environmentalist," Rasiej said. "So you'll get a message from Michelle Obama touting Obama's environmental record, rather than a message from Joe Biden saying Obama got Osama bin Laden."

Will Feltus of Virginia-based National Media, a Republican research firm, provided charts showing high-voter-turnout Democrats are likelier to drive Subarus or Saabs, drink sauvignon blanc or gin, and eat at Red Lobster or Boston Market, while high-turnout Republicans are likelier to favor Volvos or Chryslers, cabernet sauvignon or scotch, Outback Steakhouse or the Olive Garden.

Campaigns are getting so personal that some experts are calling it "nanotargeting."

"Both candidates are tech savvy and both have dozens if not hundreds of people in their headquarters working on digital media and social media," said Michael Cornfield, acting director of George Washington University's political management program. "That has really increased this year, the back-end stuff, but by definition it's not something that comes to people's attention."

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Candidates now choose the issues they want to emphasize to specific social media users.

"There is an opportunity for candidates to play up things that they know are going to be liked by a certain demographic group and downplay things they might not like, which might be disingenuous," said Todd Van Etten, managing director of social mobilization company Crowdverb and the Republican National Committee's former new-media director.

The major political parties have built huge databases -- the Republicans' is called the GOP Data Center (formerly known as Voter Vault), and the Democrats' is called VoteBuilder -- with mountains of information on voters and their habits.

Some data comes from official records: voter registration, political contributions, gun licenses and so on. But a lot of it now comes from your commercial activity: credit card transactions, outstanding loans, even those supermarket loyalty cards that save you a few cents on your groceries.

Perhaps the richest source of data about you is ... you.

Just think of all you share about yourself on Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and other social networks. And all social media aside, a lot of data comes from your online activity -- especially visits to the candidates' own websites -- tracked by "cookies" left on your computer to mark your browsing activity.

The Obama website's privacy policy lays it all out. The site collects information about where you are, how you got to the site and what you do within it. The site also places "cookies" on your computer or smartphone to collect more information, which then "may be linked to personally identifying information" obtained elsewhere, the policy says.

The policy also details a long list of ways this personal data might be used, including "to personalize and improve the Sites and our users' experiences on the Sites and with the campaign, such as providing content, or features that match your profiles or interests." At that long list's end is a catchall: "for any other purpose for which the information was collected."

The Romney campaign's website is less specific, talking about its placement of cookies but not detailing whether the information they provide is then combined with other, more personal information about voters.

In any case, everything you swipe, scan or click says something about you, and campaigns are listening so that they can tell you what you want to hear.

Each campaign's analysts seek patterns among hundreds of characteristics, looking for the smallest nuances with which they can tailor email, snail mail, phone calls, door knocking, TV and radio and social media ads to specific kinds of voters in specific places.

"You drill down deeper and deeper," Van Etten said, guessing that somewhere within both Romney's and Obama's campaign headquarters, "there's one guy whose only job it is to target 18- to 24-year-old Latina females on Facebook."

And reaching individual voters on their terms could be vital, Rasiej said: "A hundred votes here, a thousand votes there could make the difference in some of the swing states."

It's not quite, "He sees you when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake," but it's close. And some say that's disturbing or even dangerous.

"There's this sense in a democracy that we want people to be able to go the polls and exercise their right to vote free of any peering eyes," said Rainey Reitman, the Electronic Frontier Foundation's activism director. "The majority of people aren't realizing how much data these election campaigns are compiling on them in order to convince them to come to the polls."

That convincing is done by campaign volunteers whose work is guided by the databases. No longer must volunteers crowd into a campaign office to hunker down with paper scripts and phone lists to dial each voter by hand. Instead, all they need do is log in from home; the software dials targeted voters automatically and puts through a call when a voter picks up.

Similarly, smartphones now guide many precinct walkers to voters' doorsteps: The Obama for America app provides names, ages and addresses of nearby voters the campaign wants to reach, scripts tailored to hit those voters' top interests, and a feedback form to upload results.

And many volunteers making those calls, walking those precincts or doing grass-roots fundraising log in using their Facebook or Twitter accounts -- letting campaigns intensely scan their social media profiles, too.

The Obama campaign says volunteers' access to the databases is restricted to what they need for the task at hand, so they can't just log in and read everything about you.

"We have strong safeguards in place to protect personal information, including what people share with us, and we do not provide any personal information to outside entities,'' spokesman Adam Fetcher said.

Likewise, "the Romney campaign respects the privacy rights of all Americans," spokesman Ryan Williams said. "We are committed to ensuring that all of our voter outreach is governed by the highest ethical standards."

That's not comforting to Santa Clara University student Troy Estes, 19, a political moderate who's not happy with either candidate and even less so with the new tools of campaigning.

"I would hope that politicians would spend their campaign money formulating comprehensive solutions to the (country's) problems instead of using funds to micro-track voters' magazine subscriptions," he said.

Others, however, don't mind so much.

"If I as a citizen have any ability to call for a candidate to release his personal information,'' said Julie Herman, 19, another SCU student, "then it is only fair that his campaign apparatus should possess mine."

Silicon Valley companies vital to campaigns
Here are just a few of the local companies providing services and products that have changed how presidential campaigns are run, in ways great and small:
Facebook: The Menlo Park-based king of social media has become a crucial platform through which candidates connect with voters, getting their messages out through interactive posts as well as paid ads. President Obama's April 2011 town-hall meeting at the company's headquarters was broadcast live online.
Twitter: The San Francisco-based microblogging pioneer offers candidates a way to get their messages out instantaneously and virally: your president in 140 characters or fewer. The company this month released a study finding the average Twitter user was 68 percent more likely to visit a campaign donation page than the average Internet user.
Google: The Mountain View-based information conglomerate offers campaigns several key tools. Though television ads may still be king, a YouTube video might reach tens of millions with the touch of a button. And Google+ Hangouts can bring candidates closer to voters; Mitt Romney did them in November and March; President Obama did one in January.
Square: The Obama and Romney campaigns both use the San Francisco-based company's card-swipe readers and software to turn campaign volunteers' smartphones and tablets into cash registers capable of collecting campaign cash anywhere, anytime.
Eventbrite: The Obama and Romney camps sometimes use the San Francisco-based company's event-planning system to promote and distribute tickets for campaign rallies, fundraisers and other events.
Rally: The Romney campaign uses Piryx, a legacy version of San Francisco-based online fundraising platform Rally, to let volunteers start social fundraising pages and become "mini-bundlers" unto themselves.
Disqus: The San Francisco-based company's system powers the commenting function on the BarackObama.com blog.